from the total-fail dept

You may have heard that Duke Nukem Forever finally came out after a decade plus of being vaporware. It's no secret that the original team behind the game was somewhat obsessive-compulsive about not releasing a bad game -- so much so that they never released any game, and kept restarting the project entirely. After 3D Realms finally went under, someone else took control and put together a game... but the initial reviews have been scathing, and suggest that the game should have stayed vaporware.

"Too many went too far with their reviews... we r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom."

That's a huge no-no in the business, because it suggests the whole review business is a tit-for-tat setup, where you only get product if you give good reviews. Jim Redner, the guy behind the tweet removed the tweet, and admitted that he got caught up in the emotion:

It is not my intention to bully anyone. I over reacted. I just voiced an opinion. I have poured my heart into this project and I just want it to succeed.

That's all pretty unfortunate. Of course, this is the nature of the game, if you do this kind of thing. It's also one of the reasons we've tended to stay away from ever dealing with PR people. We don't do product reviews like that, and in part it's because we didn't want to have to deal with this kind of thing. Still, in the end, such a reaction tends to reflect even worse on the game because it calls into question any positive reviews.

from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-see-it dept

What, you thought that the fact that just because the developer of the world's most famous vaporware game, Duke Nukem Forever, had gone out of business that the game might really never come out? Yeah, well, after the company shut down, there was the little matter of a lawsuit with Take Two over the game. Michael Scott points us to the news that Take Two and 3d Realms have now settled their legal fight over the game, meaning that this "could pave the way to the release of the game."

Ah, but there's a caveat. You see, the game "now reportedly needs to be completed." Ah, right. Same thing we've been hearing for 13 years now. So, I think we can go back to considering the game permanent vaporware.

from the another-year,-more-vapor dept

For years, Wired has offered up an annual "vaporware" list -- and there have been a few products that always seem to make the list. There was the oh-so-aptly-named "Phantom" gaming console, but that company finally just disappeared completely. However, the granddaddy of all vaporware, which has dominated the list over and over and over again for years has been the video game Duke Nukem Forever... and it comes as no surprise that it takes the top spot, once again. The game, of course, was supposed to have been released in early 1998, so we're pushing 10 years late here. At one point, Wired even gave it a "Lifetime Achievement Award" in order to get it off the list. That was for 2003. Since then, the game's stature as Vaporware extraordinaire has only grown, forcing Wired to put it back on the list -- in its rightful spot at the top. Of course, expecting this, the company behind the game has actually released a trailer for the game... which doesn't mean much. Either way, i'm betting that there are a lot of folks who'd prefer that this game remain in perpetual vaporware. It seems a lot more fun that way.